


wonders sit in wait for us

by faithfultomonsters



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Feelings, Introspection, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Reunions, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithfultomonsters/pseuds/faithfultomonsters
Summary: Walking down the mountain by himself isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to Jaskier.That doesn't help him feel any better about it.After losing Geralt, Jaskier travels the world and tries not to lose himself.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 20
Kudos: 494





	wonders sit in wait for us

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Wild Blue Yonder" by The Amazing Devil.

Walking down the mountain by himself isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to Jaskier.

It’s not the best, either. His outfit wasn’t made for hiking up and down dusty mountains for days on end - he makes his living in cities and courts, where taverns and lords provide both payment and shelter alike. Dressing the part between work is part of the barding lifestyle - bright colors and bold styles advertise themselves. Besides, if people think he’s pleasant to look at then they’ll be more inclined to think that he’s pleasant to listen to. They are great clothes for performing. They are not great clothes for quests. Or dragons.

Or hiking down mountains, alone. Then again, he wasn’t supposed to be alone.

Jaskier has to admit that his boots could be a bit more practical. These boots aren’t bad - he walks whether he’s travelling with Geralt or not, and he can’t perform half so well if he’s limping on hole-riddled leather when he enters an inn - but they still weren’t made for mountains and hiking. He’s definitely not young anymore, and he’s definitely not getting younger. 

If there’s any consolation in the aches that aging has brought to his life, it’s that he at least spent the best of his vibrant youthful years to the fullest, doing everything he wanted. Well, almost everything.

He already knows that he will never bring himself to regret the time he’s given to Geralt. Even if they were his best years, even with all the emotions he’s doing his best to ignore, he knows he wouldn’t change any part of having Geralt in his life. 

Losing Geralt is another matter entirely. There are many things he would change about that. 

Then again, he reminds himself as his sore feet and aching legs approach the copse of trees where this whole sorry affair began on the first morning of the quest, very little of what happened was his fault. He tells himself this because he knows it and he needs to believe that Geralt was wrong, resoundingly and definitively wrong in this case especially. Jaskier didn’t deserve all that.

Geralt must know that, too. Maybe Geralt will come for him, after he’s cooled down. 

Thinking about it is like thrusting his hand into hot coals. The thought burns inside of him when he is already overheated from exposure to the glaring sun, the effect of days on end at the mercy of that damned mountain.

Walking down the mountain by himself isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to Jaskier. 

Losing his best friend, on the other hand, definitely is.

* * *

The first thing Jaskier does is pet Roach for what could be the last time. 

The next thing Jaskier does is refill his water canteen from a small river running through the shade. 

The final thing Jaskier does is pet Roach again, because he’s snuck her so many sugar cubes throughout their time together and she might not understand why he isn’t around to offer her more. Also, Geralt may still be in a mood whenever he makes it down the mountain. Jaskier knows that Geralt would never treat Roach with anything less than kindness and knows that he certainly wouldn’t start now, but he understands well enough how Geralt’s moods can weigh on someone, the almost physical weight of unspoken tension. Jaskier put a lot of work into wearing down those black moods with smiles and tunes. When those didn’t work, which often happened, he had soaps and hot water at inns, paid for by whichever one of them had coin to spare. 

Now he won’t have to worry about that, he supposes. Geralt’s moods aren’t his problem now.

Jaskier falls in love easily and has his heart broken with frequency. He understands this about himself and by this point in life has accepted this. He lives for the euphoric high of infatuation. He’s used to the plummet of rejection and heartbreak. It’s a tradeoff, and he knows how all the stories about lovers end. 

This heartache is different, though, because this heartache is something he never saw coming. Lords and ladies? Jaskier knows how those affairs end too. Most of them are already married or will eventually be arranged a marriage with someone fitting their status. A viscount Jaskier may technically be, but a relationship that must end in either a wedding or a breakup is always, always going to end with Jaskier back on the road, lute in hand and a new love ballad ready for its debut. Those relationships occupy his time and his lyrics for a while, or even just a night, and then they end. They’re over. That’s it. 

And the entire time Jaskier is courting and kissing and wooing he can see the end approaching, and with every second of the relationship he is shielded from the inevitable separation by the aesthetic distance of the artist who knows he will be able to feed himself for months after this affair if he finds the right melody with which to pair it. 

His friendship with Geralt had carried him through 22 years, and what Jaskier got from it was more than the stories. Geralt is - had been - his best friend, even if the other man had never wanted to admit to anything deeper.

Apparently, Jaskier had been deluded. 

His relationship with Geralt had gone on longer than any connection with his family, other troubadours, or even his more serious love affairs. Geralt had seen him through more seasons and mishaps than anyone else, knew Jaskier better than anyone else, and Jaskier had been elated every day that he was able to know Geralt just as well in return. 

Now Geralt of Rivia is tired of him, and Jaskier’s roots have been ripped out of the dry, dusty earth, and there is nothing for him to hold fast to and nowhere to go. 

Roach is a familiar warmth under Jaskier’s hands, and he presses his palms flat against the side of her face to soak up as much of her as he can. 

“I’ll miss you, girl. Be good to Geralt for me, okay?”

Jaskier leans his head into Roach’s mane and cries a little, thick ugly tears that make his eyes burn and turn his face blotchy. Then he turns his back on Roach, the mountain, and the whole miserable fucking quest. He leaves them behind. 

* * *

Having nowhere to go is the same as having everywhere to go. Jaskier continues with life as he would have done if he and Geralt had separated like they usually did. 

If he ignores that Geralt had turned on him, hard anger like thunder rattling the ground Jaskier stood on while his words blasted Jaskier with lightning, then he is doing what he would normally be doing if they were still friends. The motions are the same. The songs are the same. 

The songs make him choke, sometimes, because so many of them are about the same subject and he realizes soon enough that he needs to practice them on his own over a campfire or in a rented room before he pulls them out for an audience. Even when he can get himself through the song, it’s not the same as before. 

Starting in Oxenfurt, Jaskier had learned to throw himself into his music. Being a performer means being able to convince an audience to care about what you’re telling them, and Jaskier had come to pride himself on his ability to immerse himself in his songs. If you care about the music, the audience will care about the music. 

He could stop singing about Geralt, but he won’t. Geralt touches too many memories to be ignored. Jaskier loves him too much to stay mad at him. Jaskier loves him too much to forgive him. He already forgives him. He knew he would forgive him the moment he had turned on Jaskier, the moment before he had started yelling when he’d spun around, electric with tension. Jaskier had realized, right then, that something was about to happen that both of them would regret. 

Jaskier knows that he has a soft heart, a poet’s heart. He will spend the rest of his life pouring out love into every broken vessel he can find, and find himself in the act of giving. He doesn’t want to become someone who does anything else. He knows it seems naive and idealistic, but this is the only way Jaskier knows how to be.

When Geralt turned on Jaskier, the shock of it had broken Jaskier’s heart open and forgiveness flew out to wrap itself around Geralt. That forgiveness had left Jaskier behind. One day, Jaskier will catch up with his forgiveness. But not today.

Today Jaskier takes a seam ripper to his heartstrings. He cuts out the knots that tied him to the melody. 

The melody was written by someone else, a different man. Jaskier wonders how long it will take for him to stop feeling like every memory he has of Geralt is cluttering his mind. He trips over a new memory with every step forward.

Jaskier performs like his life depends on it. He travels south and as he does he throws himself into his work. Between performances and travelling, he beds stablehands and ladies and blacksmiths and anyone who will look at him for just a little while longer, hold him for just one more moment. None of the melodies he invents satisfy him. 

* * *

Two and a half years pass, and Jaskier is playing in a tavern in Gelibol when he first hears the rumor. 

Everyone knows that Nilfgaard’s armies are on the march. It’s impossible to be ignorant of how Cintra crumbled beneath the siege, the Lioness slain and the streets running with blood. Jaskier still remembers when he first heard the news. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but there was confirmation at every outpost and in every tavern. Refugees sought shelter throughout the continent and nearby kingdoms were raising armies or seeking treaties as they saw fit. 

His lute releases an easy tune under Jaskier’s fingers, slow and steady without being bright, and he hums along in agreement. It’s been a long time since anybody felt like listening to happy music in these dreary times. Everyone is either a refugee or hoping they won’t be. 

Oxenfurt taught him a number of old tragedies, but hecan’t help but think that this is when new tragedies are written. 

Speaking of new tragedies, Jaskier is pretty tragic himself. He’s better off than many, but bards are in low demand. He doesn’t own any clothes that aren’t showing wear from the road and he’s skipped a few more meals than he would like. When he had coin he spent it drinking until he ran out of money. Now the shadows his bad habits left under his eyes have taken up permanent residence and he doesn’t want to throw away money on any of the creams that would conceal them. 

Jaskier is brushing his hands over the strings and humming along when his ears first pick up the words. They aren’t spoken in a hushed whisper but rather at a normal volume that carries enough for Jaskier to pick them up from where he’s perched at the corner of the barkeep’s counter. 

“Have you heard about the army?” says a rough-looking man, presumably a local from the ease with which he talks to the bartender.

“Hard to hear about anything else,” says the bartender. It’s getting late and nobody is asking for much. She has the time to lean against the countertop while wiping off a grimy cup with a grimier rag. “There’s no telling when they’ll stop.”

“No, but that’s not all.”

“Oh? Any news?”

“Some Cintran refugees came by earlier to get their horses shoed and they said Nilfgaard was after something.”

Jaskier quiets his playing incrementally, turning his ears to the conversation. He’s learned plenty of useful things by eavesdropping in taverns, and he can tell when a bit of gossip might be important.

“What can an army need? Something besides the food from our mouths?” says the bartender.

“There’s some witcher, they say, and a kid. Travelling together. Nilfgaard’s got agents searching high and low for them, and they’re paying a pretty penny in exchange for information.”

Jaskier feels himself pale. He comes dangerously close to fumbling a chord, and muscle memory is the only thing that saves the music. The last thing he wants is to make himself stand out right now by drawing attention to a sour chord. 

He knows full well there are other witchers besides Geralt out there, but a witcher travelling with a child? Being hunted by Nilfgaard? 

The only person Jaskier knows who could fill all the criteria is Geralt.

The bartender puts the mug down and picks up another to clean. “I’d be careful offering them any information. I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone that told them something got paid well and then vanished with the coin.”

The man snorts. “I never said I had anything to tell them. It makes you wonder, though, don’t it?”

“We’re living in interesting times,” the bartender says. 

Jaskier keeps his gaze carefully averted from the conversation as he strums on, doing his best to look unchanged but feeling electrified. 

Geralt found his child surprise. They’re out there, somewhere, and Nilfgaard is after them. A wave of feeling threatens to upend Jaskier from his stool, but he stays firm. 

Geralt, on the run. In hiding. It must be difficult, with a child - Jaskier still remembers when he realized that Geralt would make more of an effort to get rooms in an inn if he was travelling with Jaskier, and find food in towns rather than sleeping on the outskirts and hunting if he didn’t have to, all for the sake of Jaskier’s comfort. He would want to do the same for a child, if he is travelling with one. But staying inconspicuous with his white hair and a child in tow must be virtually impossible. 

Everything he has heard about the Nilfgaardian army, and all the atrocities that they’ve been committing, flashes through Jaskier’s mind. He’s heard what Nilfgaard does to those in its way. He’s seen the fear in the eyes of every villager who hears that Nilfgaardian forces are heading their direction, a fear sweeping the continent and occupying space in every conversation, notable in its absence if it isn’t mentioned. 

Jaskier can think of very few occasions where he saw Geralt afraid. Monsters don’t scare Geralt, not when he’s already seen them all and knows how to dispatch them in a hundred different ways. 

The half-empty cup of ale resting on the counter next to him has never been less appealing.

That night, Jaskier sleeps on the floor of the tavern by the hearth, curled up in his bedroll and as close as he can get to the warmth of the low fire without having to worry about rolling into the coals in his sleep. It’s part of the agreement he struck with the bartender when he had first arrived in Gelibol and found the only inn full.

The next morning, Jaskier wakes up before dawn and starts his search for Geralt.

* * *

Jaskier doesn’t actually know where Geralt and the princess are, so he starts by making a pointed effort to find the busiest places he can and keep an open ear. He can’t afford to miss chances. For Geralt’s sake, he can’t afford to miss chances.

Not to mention the fact that Jaskier knows the little princess, at least a little. Jaskier went back to Cintra plenty of times after that destiny-laden banquet. The court had liked him, and Pavetta had liked seeing him because he was a connection to her child’s fate, and Calanthe had liked seeing him because Jaskier always had to hide from at least one cuckolded lord or lady throughout the course of any royal event and it entertained her to see him crawl under tables when certain nobles happened to wander his direction. Princess Cirilla knew his face and was delighted to see him when he last saw her, and he carried her on his back at the banquet held for her seventh birthday. He’d been sore for days afterward and never once regretted a second of it. 

Travelling while searching isn’t easy. In one tavern he hears whispers about a large man with white hair travelling under cover of night with a little girl and although he only has a hint of a location to work with he leaves as quickly as he can. Geralt is undoubtedly moving quickly, not staying in any one place for long. It will take a lot for Jaskier to catch up to them. 

He gets a horse named Nutmeg, paid for with the money he makes selling off his most expensive clothes to merchants and, once, to another bard travelling in the opposite direction.

“I’ll thank you for the deal, my good fellow,” the other bard says with an easy grin, “but you really should take care where you travel. There’s dangerous business where you’re headed.”

Jaskier smiles back, grim. “Oh, I’m headed exactly where I need to be,” he says. The other bard raises an eyebrow but doesn’t press the matter, and waves him farewell without looking back. 

The thing is, Jaskier knows that he won’t practically be a lot of help. Geralt is very capable, easily the most capable person Jaskier has ever met. He’s been killing monsters for longer than Jaskier has been alive and there is nothing that Jaskier has to offer Geralt that Geralt couldn’t do himself, better and more efficiently. 

But he knows Geralt, and he knows that Geralt is by himself, and he has a child with him, and Melitele knows that Geralt doesn’t know how to talk to kids, let alone probably traumatized princesses whose kingdoms have been overthrown, and oh hell, he’s fooling himself if he thinks that he’ll be able to do anything for Geralt. But he knows that if he doesn’t try to help his best and truest friend - his heart breaks - when he needs it, then he will spend the rest of his natural life worrying and wondering where Geralt is and what’s become of him. 

He needs to know that Geralt is alright. He needs to see it for himself. He wants to make sure Geralt is eating enough, and doesn’t scare off his child surprise by being too quiet, and is able to get some rest at night instead of keeping watch and going without sleep for days and days even if he can, because he shouldn’t have to. 

Besides, Jaskier can help them blend in. Geralt can’t help but stand out, but Jaskier can pass unobtrusively through any town no matter what Geralt thinks about Jaskier’s need to draw attention to himself. 

He doesn’t let himself think about what he’ll do if Geralt still doesn’t want to see him. He thinks Geralt didn’t mean what he said back on the mountain but if he has to hear it all again after going through all this it just might break him.

Jaskier avoids using main roads when he can, for fear of encountering any travelling regiments, and often rides during the night when he’s in heavily populated areas or too close to army camps for comfort. He’s getting into territory occupied by Nilfgaard, and if Geralt and the princess are really here then they’re going to have a hell of a time getting out. This little adventure south has covered more ground than he has ever covered in such a short span of time. He has to be careful not to overwork poor Nutmeg, who accepts the few treats he has to offer with a grateful little whinny every time. When he’s worried about taxing Nutmeg he walks on foot for a while so she can rest. 

Jaskier is wearing through his boots. Jaskier is exhausted, but his fear keeps him moving. Worry and fear are strings that pull him up from the ground when he wants to crumple like a broken puppet. If he sleeps too long he dreams about Geralt being captured by soldiers, a little girl with white-blonde hair who looks so much like her mother being dragged away from him, destiny’s best efforts being foiled by steel and armor.

Then comes Ban Glean.

* * *

The city of Ban Glean isn’t completely free from Nilfgaard’s presence, but it seems to have been spared the worst of Nilfgaard’s attention. A few Nilfgaardian flags are always within eyesight and Nilfgaardian troops are around every corner, but the occupation seems - on the surface - fairly peaceful. There is no telling what Nilfgaard did when they first arrived to convince the populace that peace was their best option.

The main thing worrying Jaskier is how he is going to keep a low profile while looking for Geralt. Unfortunately, that which would help him the most is also putting him in danger. 

Jaskier the bard has enough of a reputation that if he announced himself and started performing at a tavern then his reputation alone would draw enough attention. In the past, Geralt has found Jaskier through word of mouth about his location before. Jaskier has done the same easily enough, following up on rumors of witchers to make his path tangle up with a certain white-haired hero.

If it became known that Jaskier the bard was in Ban Glean, then word would spread. Maybe, if Geralt wanted to find him, he would hear the news and seek him out himself.

Then again, if Nilfgaard knows that Jaskier is in Ban Glean, they might try to use the White Wolf’s bard as leverage. He may thrive on attention, but he knows full well that certain kinds of attention aren’t worth the trouble. 

He is still rootless, but he feels less like a dead plant withering on the side of the road and more like a reaching vine, leaning towards any source of light he can find, and the light he’s looking for is getting closer by the day.

He sends up a prayer that the idle chatter he overheard was true. 

He sends up a prayer that Geralt won’t have already moved on to somewhere else, someplace secret and far from this town. 

He sends up a prayer that Geralt won’t push him away again.

Walking through the streets, doing his best not to stand out, Jaskier keeps his head down and notes what streets and taverns the Nilfgaardian troops are favoring. He’s been travelling as Julian for a few weeks and doesn’t expect to be recognized here, but should the worst comes to worse it pays to have a plan. 

Besides, being pursued by Nilgaardian troops is the sort of thing one can almost prepare for. Jaskier can’t imagine how he’s supposed to prepare for finding Geralt. He doesn’t expect to see him in the town itself. Geralt would stand out too much. A witcher and a child travelling together would be too obvious. 

Jaskier himself may be too obvious. He regrets his fame now more than ever, so much so that he keeps his eyes trained on the cobblestones beneath his feet and only happens to glance into a puddle in the middle of the road, left from rains that had drenched him on the road the night before. 

His reflection alarms him. He looks haggard, worn, threadbare. He hasn’t shaved in a while and he still has those damned circles under his eyes and weight lost. This is, quite possibly, the most mature he has ever looked. It might also be the worst he has ever looked. 

Well, he muses to himself as he shakes himself out of his thoughts and continues to wander the streets, at least he won’t be recognized. He doesn’t even recognize himself like this. He's certainly changed over the years. Why shouldn’t his appearance?

He strides into a tavern. The barkeep glances over him as he enters, but other than that nobody pays any attention to him. 

Nobody spares him a second glance as he walks in and finds a seat. It’s such a difference from when he’s going about as himself, nothing at all like how he would make the act of stepping through a doorway a grand entrance and perform from the moment he entered to the moment he dropped into a bed at the end of the night, his or somebody else’s, and Geralt would be sitting in a corner with that tolerant look on his face…

Jaskier forces himself away from that train of thought as he walks up to the bar and orders a meal. He wouldn’t find Geralt in the corner of the room, not here. No, the corner table here is occupied by a little girl with blonde hair in travel-worn clothes.

Jaskier’s heart skips a beat and he blinks once, hard, at the child who doesn’t notice him. If his behavior draws attention to the princess sitting in the corner of the room eating soup by herself he will never forgive himself. 

Instead, what he does is walk to the barkeep, order his own food and ale, and then walk as nonchalantly as possible past where he had originally been sitting and slide into the chair opposite Ciri like he’s supposed to be there. His back is to the room and he intentionally keeps distance between him and her, knowing that if she runs now he won’t only lose her, he’ll draw attention they can’t afford. 

There’s one or two men in this room with swords sheathed around their waists who look as though they’ve finished shifts patrolling on Nilfgaard’s watch and the last thing anyone needs is for them to take a sudden interest in the girl in the corner.

“Hello, princess,” Jaskier says, low and easy like he’s an old relative who happens to have a nickname for her rather than a bard who played age-appropriate songs on her birthday every other year. 

Ciri jumps immediately, blue eyes shocked and wide as she tenses immediately. One of her hands is gripping something at her side, under the table. 

Jaskier hopes it’s a knife. If he knows Geralt, he gave her a weapon and taught her how to use it as best he could while they were on the run. He’d done the same thing for Jaskier, years ago. 

“Easy there, my girl.” Jaskier eats a spoonful of his soup like they have all the time in the world. Nobody he can see is paying attention to them. “I had quite a time finding you. All the streets here look the same.” With his eyes he begs her to stay, to recognize him and not try anything desperate to get away from him. He’s only now found her. He can’t lose her so easily. 

As he watches, Ciri’s fearful eyes flicker from him to the lute strapped to his back. Then she frowns at his food and, still coiled tight like a little snake, speaks to him in a soft and oh-so-careful voice. 

“Have you been looking for me long?” she says.

It’s clever. Anyone listening in wouldn’t think anything about the conversation. And she didn’t even have the chance to prepare herself.

“Oh, once I got myself oriented I didn’t have any problems at all! Just had to find the right street and here you were. I have to say, you’ve grown since your last birthday. Getting taller all the time, aren’t you?”

Jaskier doesn’t wink but it’s a near thing. He chances a bit of inflection on _birthday_ and is rewarded when Ciri gives him a close look, leaning forward a bit with how intensely she scrutinizes him. 

Her mouth drops open. The realization flashes across her eyes as she looks again from his lute to him, her gaze settling eventually on his eyes. By this point his eyes must be the only thing about him that don’t look wretched. The tension in her right arm looks a bit less as though she’s gripping a knife underneath the table. 

“Yes,” Ciri says, “it can be difficult to recognize someone when you haven’t seen them in a while. People really do change.”

Jaskier smiles. “One man in his time plays many parts,” he says, a performer to the end. Maybe that’s what he should do after all of this is over, at some unknowable point in the future. He could head back to Oxenfurt and take advantage of the playhouses there, rather than teaching. His reputation precedes him enough by this point that they would accept him into almost any show on the spot. 

For a moment, the thought grabs him and he remembers the theater clearly. The creaking of the stage, the expanse of open sky over the audience, the heavy fabric from elaborate costumes and the smell of creams and powders applied backstage. 

Then the moment fades and Jaskier is sitting in a tavern, dirt caked under his nails, whittled down like a cheap carving but sharp as a knife for the man he was never really able to sever himself from. He can’t believe he thought he would be able to leave Geralt behind. 

Planning ahead won’t do. He needs to focus on this moment, where he is trying to convince a wide-eyed little girl with dirt on her face who looks like she’s been through hell and back that he’s here to help her. The poor thing was probably there when Cintra was invaded. He can’t begin to imagine how she survived, or what she had to go through before she found Geralt. Or Geralt found her.

That’s certainly a story he wants to hear from Geralt - how he found his child of destiny, how long she wandered on her own, what happened when they found each other. It would be a wonderful story to hear and an even better one to tell. 

Judging from the military movements of Nilfgaard, however, it looks as though he won’t be able to share that particular story for a long time yet. 

“Are you playing a different part now? Or are you still the same actor?” Ciri asks, and her big blue eyes have an almost frantic note of desperation, like she’s worried he’ll turn on her. The poor thing must be paranoid by now, hunted as she is.

Ciri is still watching him. Jaskier makes a show of continuing to eat as though nothing is wrong. 

“Once a bard, always a bard, but still the same actor,” he says, and hopes she can read his sincerity because there is nothing he can do to prove to her that he won’t turn on her. 

She follows his lead and continues eating. Jaskier beams.

“The roads are dangerous nowadays,” he says after a few minutes of silence. He tilts his head, mock-thoughtful. “You shouldn’t be travelling alone. Have you considered getting a dog?”

Jaskier has no idea whether Geralt told Ciri about their history, but a flicker of mirth behind her eyes makes him think that maybe Geralt mentioned his name once or twice in their time together.

“I did, actually,” says Ciri around a mouthful of bread. 

“Well, I certainly hope he isn’t wandering the streets on his own.” 

“He isn’t wandering on his own. He’ll find me here. This is where we agreed to meet,” Ciri says, and Jaskier’s heart stops. 

Geralt, here? In this town? While Nilfgaard hunts for the princess? 

It doesn’t seem likely. It doesn’t seem safe.

The thought that Geralt could be so close to them makes Jaskier’s stomach do funny things. He manfully ignores it. 

“Lovely,” Jaskier says around the lump in his throat.

“You don’t seem well,” Ciri says, and he wants to respond by bursting into tears but that’s not a response he’s going to put in the hands of a child so he smiles instead, which is something he’s always been good at.

“I will be,” Jaskier says, and at that moment the door to the tavern opens and in steps a figure that Jaskier would recognize in any situation, under any circumstance. 

Geralt of Rivia.

In the flesh.

He’s standing tall and straight. He pulls off the hood over his head in one easy motion as he scans the room, obviously looking for Ciri, with that little line between his eyebrows that he gets when he’s worried but doesn’t want to say it. Jaskier wants to kiss it. Hiding under the table also sounds like a pretty appealing prospect right now, too, but Geralt’s eyes find the corner of the room and Ciri and Jaskier.

Jaskier seriously considers hiding under the table.

The moment Geralt makes eye contact with Jaskier is like getting struck by lightning again, but strangely enough Jaskier feels grounded by it. 

It’s as though a piece of himself has fallen back into place. That piece of himself isn’t Geralt. No, Jaskier is his own person and never once thought otherwise. The part of himself that shifts into place is the part that doubted his capacity for love.

Jaskier thought he’d left his heart behind him on that mountain and had doubted his judgment, his actions, and his every feeling until he’d given up and tried drowning it. 

Seeing Geralt fills Jaskier with a bone-deep certainty that he made the right choice for all those years he followed Geralt and that he wouldn’t hesitate to do so again. He would be a different person if he had never met Geralt. He no longer wonders who that person would be. He wouldn’t want to be him in the first place. Jaskier didn’t even realize his body could hold as much emotion as it is holding now, and all he’s done is look at Geralt.

Geralt looks exhausted. The circles under his eyes are a match for Jaskier’s. Dirt and blood are practically embedded in his clothes. Travel-worn, determined, and driven by a greater purpose, Geralt is more functional than Jaskier but has been keeping long nights and busy days. 

The forgiveness that Jaskier felt leave him on the mountain flutters across the room and burrows into his chest. It makes a home behind his lungs. Jaskier wants to sing.

He doesn’t. Instead, he levels Geralt with the steadiest look he can manage from across the room, anxiety like a wave cresting to crash down on him even as he feels himself flood with a warmth that fills him fit to burst.

He’s missed Geralt so much.

Geralt doesn’t hesitate long. He makes directly for where they sit and slides onto the bench next to Ciri, one hand ruffling her hair. When he pulls his eyes from Jaskier to her, his eyes are soft and kind. Jaskier could reach across the table and kiss him. He won’t. Geralt could still turn him away. He doesn’t think it would hurt as much, this time. He would be able to bear it. He would move on.

“Everything alright?” Geralt says to Ciri.

“Yes,” Ciri says, quiet. “I met a friend.” He almost thinks he sees a hint of a hope on her face.

Geralt looks back at Jaskier. “I see you did.” Geralt smiles at him, just a little thing, but for Geralt he may as well have lifted him out of his seat and hugged him. 

Jaskier is fighting back tears and they haven’t even had a whole conversation between the two of them. He can tell he’s going to be a complete disaster by the end of this. 

“So you two really know each other?” Ciri says. Geralt and Jaskier both look at her, then at each other.

“We’re old friends,” Geralt says, and Jaskier’s heart breaks clean open and that forgiveness he’d given away ties his heartstrings in knots again, wraps itself up with a bow and ribbons and that’s it, he’s crying.

“Is he okay?” he can hear Ciri asking. “Are you okay?”

This is definitely mortifying in a way he’d hoped he wouldn’t be when he finally saw Geralt again. “It’s fine,” he says, blinking back a wave of tears. 

“Are you sure?” Geralt says, watching him closely, and Jaskier knows that in the past he would have been apologetic over getting so damned emotional when they were in public and trying to avoid a scene, but he doesn’t feel a bit ashamed and Geralt’s voice is unspeakably tender. When Jaskier rubs at his eyes they clear up and he is able to see Geralt now, face open and eyes soft with concern and maybe even regret. There’s depths to those eyes. There’s conversations they need to have but can’t have right in the middle of a tavern in Nilfgaard-occupied territory. 

Speaking of-

“I’m just peachy,” says Jaskier, “but how exactly are we sitting in this tavern in public without drawing attention to ourselves?” He raises his eyebrows meaningfully at Geralt, who snorts at the unspoken implication. 

Then Geralt tugs a necklace out from under his shirt, a little metal charm that doesn’t catch any light whatsoever despite the table having a candle right smack in the middle of it, and explains.

“Yen,” he says.

“Of course,” Jaskier says, keeping his expression and tone carefully neutral.

Geralt sighs. “She was at Sodden.”

“Wait a minute, Sodden? Wasn’t there-”

“The battle, yes. Yen was in it.” Geralt frowns. “She _was_ it. We had visions - Ciri and I - so we found her after we found each other.”

Ciri, eating and apparently content to watch them talk now that Geralt has approved of Jaskier, chimes in. “Technically, I found you.”

The smile Geralt gives to her comes so easily it takes Jaskier’s breath away. He could get used to seeing Geralt parent this girl. 

“Ciri found me, and then we found Yen.”

“Huh.” Jaskier has never claimed to get along with Yennefer, but there’s a large distance between disliking someone for being crazy and power-hungry and wanting them dead. “Is she okay?”

Geralt seems to relax minutely when Jaskier asks the question. “She’ll be alright. Wasn’t in good shape, but she’s recovering. She gave me this before we went separate ways.”

The medallion has an X carved in the middle of it, like a coin with a monarch’s face crossed out. 

“Charming trinket. I don’t suppose it could have been any less fashionable?”

Apparently Geralt’s missed his pettiness, because there’s the glint of genuine humor in his eyes when he answers.

“It’s an antidetection charm. It keeps people from noticing me.”

“They can tell he’s there, but he slips right out of their minds,” Ciri adds. 

“Doesn’t that mean I should have failed to notice you? Not that I could ever not notice you, that is,” Jaskier says, throwing in a little wink and earning another amused snort from Geralt. He can’t help it. He can’t stop himself. Geralt’s eyes are fixed on him except for when he turns his attention to Ciri. Having Geralt’s attention is amazing and terrifying. 

“That’s the catch. Anyone who has already seen me won’t have any trouble recognizing or remembering me. We’ve been avoiding villages I’ve been to before. And trying to avoid attention.” Geralt probably judges whether or not to visit human haunts based on how cold or peaky Ciri is. It’s what he did with Jaskier when the weather started getting colder while they were on the road. 

“Which is why I order the room at inns whenever we stay in one,” Ciri says as she swallows the last spoonful of her soup. Geralt passes her another piece of bread without looking. 

“And why we’ll be heading up to our room soon,” Geralt says as he scans the tavern, which is getting even more crowded as time goes on. 

“Ah,” Jaskier says, realizing all at once that he has little coin and no particular plan for what he will do now. 

He must look bereft for a second too long, because Geralt stands up and, without looking at him, does what Jaskier had been hoping and fearing he would do. 

“You should come with us,” Geralt says. 

Geralt hasn’t apologized for anything yet. Geralt was happy to see him. He’s been searching for Geralt for so long. 

“Okay,” Jaskier says. 

Geralt sends Ciri upstairs to bed, then turns to Jaskier. Now they’re closer to being alone together than they have been in almost three years. 

Jaskier doesn’t say anything. He searches Geralt’s eyes for whatever he can find, and he gets the impression that Geralt is doing the same to him.

Eventually, Geralt speaks. 

“I’m going to check on Roach,” he says. 

“I’ll come with you.” 

They walk out in silence. The stables are behind the inn, and Roach is in a stall to herself munching on oats when they reach her. He thinks of Nutmeg, put up in a stable on the other side of town. She’s probably doing much the same right now. 

Jaskier cuts in front of Geralt and rushes towards Roach before he can stop himself. 

“Roach!” She stops eating to nuzzle his shoulder as he wraps his arms around her neck. “Oh, you’re such a good girl. I’ve missed you too, you wonderful horse.” 

“Hm,” he hears from behind him. When Jaskier looks back Geralt is looking almost amused again. 

“What, like you wouldn’t be glad to be reunited with Roach?” says Jaskier.

“Never said that.”

Geralt finds a brush and sets to work grooming Roach. From his vantage point perched on the dividing wall between Roach’s stall and next one, Jaskier observes the grooming ritual. For a long time he’s thought that Geralt must find some meditative quality in taking care of Roach like this, a constant element as the world around him changes. 

Geralt will be doing this long after his death, Jaskier thinks. Finding Geralt provided a shock of adrenaline that chased away the strain of long travel, but the feeling comes back as Jaskier sits in silence and watches Geralt’s hands. 

He wouldn’t mind holding those hands in his own for a while. He’s thought about it before, alongside fantasies of the more carnal and equally appealing variety. The scars on Geralt’s forearms are still in all the same places, although Jaskier spots one or two new ones that he really does want to ask about. 

An easy silence rests between them, and Jaskier hopes Geralt enjoys it as much as he does. 

“I need to apologize,” Geralt says into the silence. He’s standing with a hand pressed to Roach’s mane, not looking at Jaskier but not doing anything else. The frown from earlier has made a reappearance. Jaskier sort of wants to kiss it. He doesn’t.

What Jaskier does instead is sit back and listen.

“I was angry. I shouldn’t have said what I said.” Geralt breathes in slowly and exhales. The words sound like he’s been thinking them over for a long time. “You’re not shovelling shit into my life. You were one of the best parts of it for a long time. I wanted to hurt you because I was hurt by my own damn choices, and I’d gotten used to taking you for granted because you had never left me before.”

“You’ve been talking to someone about this,” Jaskier says, surprised by the realization. There’s too much emotional intelligence going on for Geralt to have reached this conclusion by himself. 

Geralt hums. “Kept running into Yen. She got tired of talking about how mad she was at me and asked why we weren’t travelling together.” 

“Oh,” Jaskier says dumbly.

Geralt looks him directly in the eyes. “I answered honestly. Told her I’d driven you away right after she left. Given you no reason to stay. Offered nothing to get you down the mountain, even.”

There must be something in Jaskier’s throat. It’s the only explanation for this choking feeling.

“I was alright,” he manages eventually. He doesn’t know if he’s lying or not. He was devastated and virtually stranded, but he made it down. He’s alive today, so how bad could it have been? Was the trek down that bad, or was it just the heartbreak? In all of Jaskier’s memory there have been few occasions when Geralt let himself be emotionally vulnerable in front of Jaskier. Some occasions it couldn’t be helped, and over the years Geralt really had opened up more, but Jaskier has always been aware that Geralt is set on handling his feelings by pretending they don’t exist. But now Geralt is telling him, directly, how he feels, and Jaskier scarcely knows what to do.

Geralt steps toward Jaskier, watching him carefully as he does. Jaskier sits at roughly his eye level. His grip on the wall he’s sitting on tightens. 

When Geralt speaks, his voice is low and unsettled. “Were you alright?” He steps closer again. “Are you alright?”

Confusion makes Jaskier frown for a moment until he remembers seeing his reflection earlier today. He doesn’t look like himself. He hasn’t looked like himself for a while, or felt like himself either. 

“I am,” he says. He isn’t, but he will be, or he’ll be close enough that it doesn’t matter. Geralt steps closer again and Jaskier can’t even imagine how to process the amount of emotion he is experiencing. “I am,” he says, one more time, but it comes out choked. 

Geralt lifts his hand to Jaskier’s face. When his warm hand brushes against Jaskier’s cheek, Jaskier realizes that tears are streaming down his face. He hadn’t realized he had started to cry. “Geralt,” he says, without knowing what he wants to say next. Geralt’s hand is impossibly gentle where it cups the side of his face and Jaskier can’t help but lean into it, letting himself lean into the security of Geralt’s callused palm. 

“I worried about you, after I calmed down,” Geralt says. He’s close enough now that he’s essentially standing between Jaskier’s legs. It’s all Jaskier can do to look up to him, head tilted ever so slightly to hold eye contact. Jaskier can’t imagine how he looks. 

Then again, Geralt doesn’t seem to mind, staring down at him like he’s trying to memorize his face. Jaskier tries to pull himself together and the effort makes him cry more. 

“I’m sorry, Geralt, give me a moment.” Jasker goes to rub at his face, but Geralt’s warm hands loosely hold his wrists and he moves them down so that Geralt can step close to Jaskier, and just like that Geralt pulls Jaskier into a hug.

Jaskier starts crying in earnest, and this time he couldn’t hold anything back if his life depended on it. 

“I didn’t want to lose you then, and I don’t want to lose you now,” Geralt says. His voice has gone as gentle as his touch. Jaskier recognizes his tone from how he soothes Roach when she’s frightened. The thought can’t seem to bother him at the moment. “I can’t bear to lose you again. I’m so sorry, Jaskier.”

Jaskier’s pressing his dirty face into Geralt’s old shirt that smells like dirt and sweat and Geralt, and he’s so tired but he’s also so happy and he’s been so miserable and trying to ignore it for so long that he doesn’t know how to start putting everything into words. 

Eventually, after the sobbing subsides and one or two stablehands have entered the stables and subsequently been glared away by Geralt, Jaskier can speak again. He feels like something reached inside of him and scooped him out, a bit hollow but not necessarily in a bad way. 

“I don’t want to lose you either,” he says. His voice sounds ragged. “I’ve been worrying about you too. After all, you’re the one Nilfgaard’s after. I love you too much to let you go again. I’ve missed you.” The words hardly contain the enormity of his feelings, but he can’t seem to organize his thoughts. His heart is hammering inside of his chest but he feels light-headed. He’d underestimated how exhausting it would be to run through all of his feelings about Geralt after weeks of travel.

Geralt must notice this, because he steps back and gives Jaskier another one of those odd, searching looks. It’s all Jaskier can do to stare back, grateful enough for the weight of Geralt’s hands on his shoulders, solid and steady. He puts his hands over Geralt’s and smiles up at Geralt weakly. He might be a little delirious. 

“You look tired,” Geralt says eventually. 

Jaskier hums, thinking something about how their positions are reversed. Normally he has to tell Geralt to get some rest. 

In one movement so quick Jaskier later doubts that it ever happened, Geralt leans forward and kisses Jaskier on the forehead.

It’s a quick, light peck, a second that would be easy to miss, so fleeting that Jaskier finds himself staring blankly at Geralt and seriously considering the possibility that he may have started hallucinating. 

Then Geralt lifts him down from the stable divider with both hands and leads him inside the inn with an arm around his waist. Jaskier is too tired to question it, and wordlessly leans into Geralt’s side to absorb his warmth. 

Their room in the inn has two beds. Ciri is in the one furthest from the door, snoring softly, and doesn’t stir when they enter. Geralt bundles Jaskier into the other one. Jaskier has enough wherewithal to take his boots off and strip down to his undershirt before sinking into the mattress. When Geralt hesitates before getting in, Jaskier uses the last of his energy to reach for Geralt. 

Geralt’s quiet laugh nestles into Jaskier’s heart and he fully intends to keep it for later. The minute he feels Geralt’s weight shifting the mattress he curls up against him. They’ve shared beds before on their travels. Jaskier hadn’t realized how much he missed it. 

When he falls asleep, the last thing Jaskier is aware of is a large, warm hand carding through his hair, barely perceptible for how light the touch is, as though Jaskier is something lovely that ought to be cherished. 

* * *

Things are different, afterwards. 

When Jaskier wakes up the next morning, Geralt has one arm draped heavy across his waist even though he has already been, by all appearances, awake for quite some time. Normally Jaskier wakes up alone when he shares a bed with Geralt. To add to his confusion, Geralt doesn’t seem in any hurry to move even once Jaskier rolls over to face him and makes a bleary confused noise. 

“Bwuh?” Jaskier says. Truly a moment of poetic transcendence.

All Geralt does is smile at him, and it’s still a new experience to have Geralt so openly give him his undiluted attention. 

The thing is, Jaskier has known in the past that he’s had Geralt’s attention, and now he trusts his own judgment enough that he knows he’s had Geralt’s friendship too. He’s learned to read Geralt and he’s gotten used to Geralt’s degree of expressiveness, which is normally zero. So he knows that Geralt listened to him when he said anything important, no matter how much Geralt would pretend to ignore him when he started rambling. 

“You’re up,” Jaskier says pointlessly.

“Yeah.” Geralt pulls him close for one confusing, paralyzing moment, because Jaskier has absolutely no idea what he is about to do, but all that happens is that Geralt holds Jaskier close in a warm, sleep-soft embrace, face buried in Jaskier’s hair, and then pulls away and gets up and starts his day as though nothing he has just done is out of the ordinary. 

“Well then,” Jaskier says, half to himself as he watches Geralt pull a shirt over his head. 

Across the room, he hears Ciri yawn. When he looks over she is sitting upright in the blankets, blinking blearily at Geralt, who reaches out to tousle her hair before leaving the room. 

“Where are you going?” Jaskier says.

“Food.” Geralt doesn’t elaborate. Ciri stretches, with mighty effort, and waves a little at him when she looks over and sees him awake. 

Jaskier’s curiosity is sated when Geralt returns minutes later with bread and cheese on a plate. He’s in the middle of getting dressed, Ciri having fallen back asleep facedown on her bed, when he finishes pulling his shirt over his head and notices Geralt staring at him. 

“What?” he says. 

Geralt doesn’t say anything, but he is staring at Jaskier with a strange intensity. Jaskier glances over himself and realizes that he’s made a grave mistake. 

“Ah, sorry! I really thought this was my shirt I was putting on. I must not have been awake when I grabbed it. Here, I’ll give this back to you.”

Jaskier shucks Geralt’s shirt off over his shoulders and rifles through his bags for clothes that are actually his own. He’ll need to pick up Nutmeg from where he left her stabled before he leaves town today. Behind him, Geralt unfreezes and starts moving. Odd.

Resolving to keep his distance in the future, Jaskier finally pulls a shirt on and straightens up. Geralt is still watching him. Jaskier doesn’t know what to do with this. 

Geralt’s attention continues as they eat. It continues after they wake up Ciri and start making preparations to leave. It shows in small ways but it unbalances Jaskier every time, and he frankly doesn’t know what to do with the sudden outpouring of attention that his witcher is giving him. It makes him feel a little dizzy. It makes him want to grab Geralt and dance in a circle. It makes him tilt his head at Geralt in thought, like a puppy. 

It’s not that Geralt never paid attention to him. It’s that he’s never given his attention to Jaskier as freely as a gift before, never poured it over him so he could bathe in it, let it wash off the dirt and misery from the past few years of self-defeat and wasting away as Jaskier mourned the most important relationship he ever had with another person. 

It’s not that Geralt’s attention fixes him. It’s that he doesn’t need to ask for it, or for affection, and both are given so easily that he thinks back to how he’s been living and thinks that Geralt would not let him use himself like he has been since the mountain. 

The moment finally comes when Jaskier follows Geralt to the stables. Neither of them say anything, but Jaskier can tell that they are both thinking about the path ahead of them and how it forks.

The thought of parting ways now is physically painful, but he thinks he will handle it better this time than he did before. It’s less paralyzing and more like he can breathe again. 

He’d once tried on a lady’s corset during a long night of carousing during a particularly raucous festival. It had been Jaskier’s idea to find out how narrow a corset he could wear (pretty narrow) and how well he could sing with his waist cinched as tightly as possible (decently). Concluding the night with some pleasant memories and a newfound respect for any woman performing in the fashion of the times had been a very fun way to celebrate whichever festival that had been, but he would never forget the relief of air that came after his bedpartner untied the knots holding the corset tight against him. The only other time he appreciated breathing that much was after the djinn incident, and once or twice when he had nearly drowned for unrelated reasons.

So he’ll be able to leave if he knows that this isn’t a farewell. As long as he’s able to look forward to the next time he’ll Geralt, Jaskier thinks he’ll be able to keep a smile on his face and a song in his heart. 

He’s just finished steeling himself against the inevitable pangs of separation when Geralt stops walking and turns to him, halting Jaskier with a hand on his shoulder. 

“There’s something I meant to say to you,” Geralt says. They’re standing outside the stables, and nobody is around to witness Jaskier’s eyebrows jumping up into his hairline. 

“Did you really?” he says, fighting back a knowing grin. 

“Yes. I need to apologize.”

“You did.”

“I want to apologize. Again.”

“Oh? Well, go ahead then. I don’t know that I’ll get anything more from it the second time around, but if it will make you happy, go right ahead.” Jaskier sits back with his arms crossed and waits for what Geralt has to say. 

Geralt does the thing where he focuses so hard it looks like he’s scowling. It makes Jaskier’s heart ache a little for how much he’s missed Geralt. He counteracts the scowl by leaning forward with his sunniest smile. 

“Where are you going after this?” asks Geralt.

Jaskier blinks. He hadn’t put much thought into where he would go after finding Geralt. Finding Geralt had been his guiding star for a while now. Even before he started actively searching, Jaskier was drifting wherever he thought he could escape the thought of Geralt. 

“I don’t have plans,” Jaskier says, “but Oxenfurt will always take me. I can avoid attention travelling on my own just fine, especially without those colorful clothes you love teasing me for.”

The reference brings a glint of humor to Geralt’s eyes even as he mulls over his next words. 

“What if… you didn’t go to Oxenfurt?”

“I don’t have to go there. There’s other places I could find to hole up. Or I could keep travelling as I have been.” Not his favorite idea, but entirely possible. Geralt seems to have something else on his mind.

“No, I meant something safer. You’ve got a reputation. Too many people know you’re my friend.” Even in a conversation as serious as this, hearing Geralt acknowledge Jaskier as his friend makes him feel like he’s got a bird fluttering around in his ribcage. Even when Geralt says the word _friend,_ his voice gets gentle and weighty with meaning. “If you want, I’d like you to come with me and Ciri. To Kaer Morhen.”

Oh. That’s a possibility Jaskier honestly hadn’t considered. Travelling with Geralt after finding him again had been the best he had dared to hope for, and even then he hadn’t known where Geralt would want to hide from Nilfgaard. 

Going to Kaer Morhen with Geralt and Ciri is more than he would have ever let himself hope for. 

Jaskier sniffles and realizes that he is on the verge of crying again. Geralt is still watching him closely, like he thinks Jaskier might do something unexpected. His attention is more than affirming, it’s centering. Jaskier thinks back and it occurs to him that Geralt’s given him his attention, undivided save for Ciri, since the moment he set eyes on him in the tavern. He hasn’t had to fight for it or beg for it or even do anything worth paying attention to. Geralt is giving him attention, openly, and the constancy of this more than anything else threatens to make Jaskier weep.

As a bard, Jaskier knows how to get attention. He can command it from the moment he steps on a stage or enters a bar, he can get a crowd’s focus in a heartbeat, he can catch the eye of someone from across a crowded room and end the night in their bed. His voice can carry through open fields and crowded banquet halls over the sounds of instruments and rain and conversations. Jaskier talks a lot and he talks fast and he always has, from the day he was born into a family whose venerability came from dignified silences until the day he dies, may it stay far off. He’s caught the attention of professors and his peers and anyone with coin to pay him. He remembers Geralt helping him into bed the night before, and waking up to Geralt watching over him, without Jaskier doing anything to demand or even ask for it.

He wonders if Geralt plans on continuing this warm stream of attention. 

It occurs to Jaskier that Geralt truly does care about him. 

It occurs to Jaskier that being welcomed to Kaer Morhen is a bit like being invited into Geralt’s heart. As though Jaskier’s loyalty and forgiveness won him entry through the gates. Ciri, he notes fondly, didn’t have to do a thing to get in, other than exist. 

“I would love to,” Jaskier says, and Geralt may look road weary and ragged but his eyes are like soft yellow fires in a hearth, keeping Jaskier warm. 

“Good,” Geralt burrs, and standing this close to Geralt when his voice sinks that low makes his knees weak. 

“Are you quite certain I’ll fit in up there?” Jaskier says, new worries crashing through his thoughts. 

“Yes,” Geralt says. He doesn’t explain or defend the idea. The quiet confidence of his response is so typically Geralt that Jaskier feels a smile break across his face. 

Which is when Ciri stumbles across them, rubbing at her tired eyes while she fits the last of a piece of bread into her mouth. 

“Are we leaving now, Geralt?” she asks, and the moment passes. 

“Soon,” Geralt says, and he still hasn’t stepped back from Jaskier. They’re standing a little too close together for it to be casual. 

Ciri yawns again, gives Jaskier a friendly tired nod, and walks past them into the stable.

“Am I doing something wrong?” Geralt asks, apropos of nothing. 

“No. What? Why?” Jaskier says, head tilted the barest amount to compensate for the negligible height difference that only seems to matter when they stand this close together. 

“You smelled sad.” 

Geralt looks unhappy about this. Jaskier wonders how he smelled when he turned away from Geralt to walk down that mountain. He wonders how he smells right now.

Jaskier smiles up at Geralt and presses his hand to the center of Geralt’s chest, right where his slow heart beats in common time. He would never tell Geralt this, but over the years he’s been trying to pen a love ballad to the beat of Geralt’s heart since the first time he twisted his ankle running from a monster and Geralt carried him back to Roach to wrap it. He’d noticed Geralt’s pulse while trying to get comfortable, and while Geralt had been willing to give him very little information to work with he’s never forgotten the moment it clicked in his head that _oh, I can work with this_. 

“I was barely sad. Marginally sad. Tangentially sad, at best.” 

Geralt frowns. “Why?”

“I was thinking about how much I care about you,” Jaskier says, because he’s a bit of a mess and his eyes are tearing up for real now, and he’s spent years trying to waste away for want of love when the entire time he had it and didn’t even realize it. It wasn’t absent, just misplaced. 

Geralt wraps a hand around his waist and pulls Jaskier up against him, chest to chest, while his other hand cradles the side of Jaskier’s face and wipes away tears. His expression is unbearably tender. When he speaks, his voice is low. 

“I don’t like it when you smell like that. If I could never smell it again I would.”

Jaskier gives a watery laugh. “That’s too bad, then. I’m a bard through and through, and I’m going to have all my feelings in your direction if you keep me around.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Geralt says, and then he leans in and kisses Jaskier. 

Surprise captures the moment for Jaskier - the sun overhead, the grass under their feet, the mundanity of their surroundings a sharp contrast to this life-altering moment. 

Geralt - well, they’ve been together for years without being together. Jaskier knows how strong his hands are. He knows what Geralt smells like. There is so much about Geralt that couldn’t possibly surprise him after years of travelling together, but in this moment he feels awake and aware of everything like he wasn’t before. 

Geralt starts to pull back, tensing, most likely because of Jaskier completely freezing during the kiss, but he only begins to retreat when Jaskier flings himself at Geralt. 

If their next kiss is a little hurried, it’s only because of how joyous Jaskier is. He can’t hold still. He pulls back so that he can jump at Geralt and cling to him like a limpet while kissing him, and when Geralt’s hands go to his thighs to support his weight Jaskier whines in the back of his throat. 

Geralt pulls away, chuckling. 

“Don’t tease,” Jaskier says. He wishes he could sound more scolding, but he’s too happy right now. “I’ve missed you for too long.”

“You have me now, Jaskier.” Geralt bumps his forehead against Jaskier’s, and Jaskier’s heart melts.

“And you have me,” he says. He can feel Geralt smiling into their next kiss.

Which is how Ciri finds them a few minutes later when she walks out of the stables.

“Guys, are we still leaving soon?” Then she squeaks and Jaskier and Geralt jump back from each other like teenagers that got caught by a parent, instead of the situation being completely the other way around. Ciri is staring at them with something like enchantment on her face. 

“It’s not what it looks like,” Jaskier blurts nonsensically.

“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Geralt says at the same time. They look at each other.

Ciri’s beaming at them. This must be a game-changer for Ciri - it’s clear that the White Wolf cares about her, Jaskier has no doubt she knows that, but seeing Geralt with his arms around someone, someone she already knows and likes - it must be like one of the romantic court stories she used to hear, or maybe it reminds her of Calanthe and Eist. Or maybe Geralt said something about Jaskier to her while they were travelling. 

Now it’s Jaskier’s turn to travel with them - to join them, hand in hand with Geralt, together. 

Ciri turns back into the stables, announcing that she’s going to wait with Roach until they’re done _talking_ , and she’s definitely putting some emphasis on that last word that Jaskier hasn’t missed and he thinks with a thrill of delight of Geralt’s dry humor and wicked streak of sarcasm and Ciri may not be his child biologically, but he can already tell that Ciri is going to be Geralt’s daughter. Already is, by the looks of things. 

He still needs to pick up his horse from another stable, and the journey ahead of them is going to be long and difficult and he is definitely going to complain to Geralt about it, and the future is as uncertain as it’s ever been, but the knowledge that Geralt loves him sits inside of him and Jaskier knows he is going to savor the sensation every day for the rest of his life, because while he walked down the mountain alone, the next mountain he climbs will be the one leading to Kaer Morhen, and safety, and a long winter with a suddenly soft and very kissable Geralt.

Jaskier strums his lute as they begin the journey, Ciri gasping with delight when she realizes he’s about to start playing and Geralt offering a quiet smile bursting with warmth, and he plays like his heartstrings are bound to the lute. It's a song just for them, and for the road. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
